'Ods-life, my lads,' remarked the wild Earl, as he gazed upon it, 'it does look damnably like one of us as we shall be a few years sooner or later!' This was one of the last escapades in which Rochester was concerned. He soon afterwards fell into that illness which proved to be his last, and in the course of which he formed his edifying friendship with good Bishop Burnet. As for Sir Rupert, the disaster sobered him, not only at the time, but permanently. He stayed at what was left of his home for the remainder of his days, married the daughter of a neighbouring baronet, and died full of years and piety, though poor in this world's goods, in the latter part of George I.'s reign. He had a son, of whom this history has nothing to say, but with that son's son, born about the time of the grandfather's decease, our narrative resumes its thread. Sir Norman Kildhurm was a scholar of some eminence, and of a philosophical and speculative turn; he is said to have written several lengthy and abstruse works, all of which have withdrawn into a dignified and happy oblivion. Personally, he was an odd, unconventional genius, of uneven temper and behaviour. His mind, in some of its aspects, was amazingly lucid and sane; but in others it seemed to forsake all rationality and clearness, and immersed itself in clouds of mysticism and paradox. The family Oak had, as might readily be supposed, a profound attraction for him. He spent much time in studying it, and posterity is indebted to him for having gathered together all available scraps of its past history, both actual and apocryphal. Among other discoveries he made the somewhat curious one that the Oak differed from all known species of the _Quercus_ family, and was of another variety even than the Oak of Ennerdale, whereof tradition made it an off-shoot. Sir Norman boldly accounted for this difference by ascribing it to the strain of human blood which flowed in the tree's veins. Perhaps he may have known for a fact that a fluid which was not vegetable sap coursed beneath the rough bark; and, indeed, there is a rumour that he once dared to lop off one of the lesser branches, doubtless with a view to putting this questionable ichor to a chemical test. Whether the tree forgave the liberty in consideration of the importance of the result to be obtained, is open to question; though probably any being directly connected, as the Oak was, with the operations of destiny, would be superior to petty emotions of revenge or partiality. It cannot be denied, on the other hand, that Sir Norman's connection with the Oak was foreordained to end disastrously for him.